Chris posts: "Begone ye soda believers. Finally, definitive proof that we are indeed part of the 'midwest' and defenders of the "Pop" frontier comes from this amazing map." Nb. the very cool looking map to which he links -- here -- is flawed from the get-go by an incoherent title: "Generic Names for Soft Drinks by County."

I am an unrepentant, non-Pittsburgh-native user of the generic "soft drinks" to describe soft drinks, and I write this pièce de "résistance" sitting tonight in the heartland of authentic and eternal pop-dom: central Iowa.